NILES, IL, June 16, 2009 — Shure Incorporated announced that a five-member team from the New England School of Communications is this year's Grand Prize Winner of the fifth annual “Fantastic Scholastic Recording Competition.” The five-student team of Levi Gray, Jacob Lansky, Tyrus Michaud, Cameron Smith, and Joshua Strange, with faculty advisor Dave MacLaughlin, won this year's Shure contest with an original composition by Samuel Chase and Yuri Nikolis Trusty entitled “Never Ending Story.”Winner 2009 Fantastic Scholastic

“Congratulations to the winning team from the New England School of Communications, and thanks to all of the students who participated in the contest from all of the schools this year,” said Dave Mendez, Market Development Specialist at Shure, who coordinated the competition. “The scoring margin between entries was the closest it has been in years, which just goes to show the high quality of work that all the students’ submitted. In the end, though, the project submitted by New England School of Communications won over our amazing panel of judges. ”

The judges for the competition were Danny Duncan, Michael Frondelli, Dave Hewitt, Sylvia Massy, Ron Nevison, Keith Olsen, Elliot Scheiner, and Bil VornDick. They evaluated the recordings on their overall fidelity, clarity, and sonic balance – as well as creativity in selection and placement of microphones.

"I was very impressed with the overall quality of the work,” commented Hewitt. “The schools have come a long way. My congratulations to everyone involved. Shure scores big points again for being a concerned corporation.”

In addition to the New England School of Communications team, there were nine other competing teams from Appalachian State University Hayes School of Music, Elmhurst College, Georgia State University, Indiana University, Millikin University, The New England Institute of Art, the University of Denver, the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and Webster University.

The runner-up in this year’s competition was the team from the University of Denver and the students from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, received an honorable mention.

Each of the ten student teams worked on a recording project that consisted of tracking and mixing a performance, exclusively using a “microphone locker” provided by Shure for the competition. Teams submitted a stereo mix for review by a panel of industry professionals who were selected by Shure to judge the competition.

“It was a neat project, and we really appreciate the opportunity that Shure presented these students with,” said Dave MacLaughlin, the team’s faculty advisor. “There really are few opportunities like this recording contest, and I think that the more that we all do to make these students better at the craft of making great music, the better off we’ll all be.”

The winning team used almost all of the microphones in the locker provided by Shure to create their project, which enabled them to gain experience with some microphones that none of them had previously used. Having a wide selection of professional microphones at their disposal also enabled them to experiment with different mics on different instruments and a variety of microphone placements.

“I’d say that the VP88 wowed me,” said junior Cameron Smith. “From having never seen it before or even heard of it, and then listening to it and going, ‘Oh my goodness!’ This is some amazing sound out of this [mic].”

“This project gave us all a chance to really get in the studio and get some time with some really good microphones, and just record anything we could really think of,” commented junior Josh Strange. “It was a blast!”

As the winning school, the New England School of Communications takes ownership of the entire Shure Microphone Locker, which consists of (1) Beta 52®A, (1) Beta 57A, (1) Beta 91, (3) Beta 98D/S’s, (2) SM27-LCs, (2) KSM32/SLs, (2) KSM44/SLs, (2) KSM141/SLs, (4) SM57-LCs, (1) SM7B, (1) VP88, and (1) A27M. The entire microphone package is valued at more than $13,000. In addition, a donation of $3,000 toward a scholarship fund will be awarded to the winning school, and each member of the winning team will receive a KSM32/SL, valued at $1,075.